Culture Stripes by AnthCunny

The heavy rainfall that morning made Dr Steve's office humid and cool. It was still raining, but lightly. The weather condition had made the hospital environment less noisy for a typical Monday morning. The janitors, clerks and assistant health workers who would have been chattering noisly in their local dialect were nowhere to be found. Perhaps, they were in some corners of the building keeping warm. Or even in their bed with their spouses sharing body heat - trying to keep healthy.
Dr Steve checked the time on his wrist-watch for the upteenth time. It was 9:25 am. He was still indecisive if to begin attending to patients. One of the nurses had already dropped some files on his table. They were about ten in number. The expression in his face when the nurse dropped the files spoke loudly of the stress he had to pass through everyday.
"Gabriel Ivy." Dr Steve called out the name on the first file. No thanks to the cozy effect the weather was having on his voice.
Just when he was about repeating the name, he heard three quick successive knock on the door. A lady entered. She was in her late 20s (so she looked) and had her slim figure cladded in a pair of blue jeans trousers and grey coloured sweater. Her red sneakers giving her the vibe of a youth full of life.
"Ivy?" Dr Steve asked.
"Yeah."
"Have your seat," he offered. He didn't seem to be in a hurry. His eyes was fixed on her as she walked briskly to sit on the only chair directly opposite to him. Her fair skin caught his fancy. Dr Steve had never hidden his likeness for light skinned girls, especially when he was in the midst of his peers. The case of Ivy was a bit spectacular. Her pitch-dark neatly combed hair arranged in a ponytail made him drowse in more admiration.
Dr Steve would have continued with business of the day if not that she was lost in admiring his office. There was really nothing special about his office, save for some old colourful posters and calendar that were either advertising some weird drugs or enlightening patients about a disease or the other. Ivy took her time to look through the award plaques that were strategically placed on his table. Maybe the awards would convince her to trust the doctor the more.
"So, what's the problem?" Dr Steve asked when he noticed she was done admiring.
Ivy was unsure of what to say "Fever, I guess." She blurted. "Occasional fever. Fatigue. I just don't know". The confusion on her face was glaring.
Dr Steve was not convinced a bit. He knew something was amiss. He just couldn't place his fingers around it. He rested his back fully on the chair while folding his arms indicating his patience."
"Tell me another thing," he inquired further.
"Like what?"
"...like the remaining things wrong." Dr Steve wasn't one of those doctors that would hurry to scribble horrible names of drugs for patients to buy. Over the years, he had learnt to be patient with his patients.
"C'mon Ivy, if you don't tell your doctor, who then will you tell?" He tried being persuasive.
Ivy felt her face redden with tears gathering in her eyes. She was still having a double mind if to pour our her heart to the doctor. She avoided eye contact with him - just to prevent the tears from rolling down.
"My breasts."
"Huh? What about it?" Dr Steve didn't hide his shock. He leaned forward with his two hands supporting the weight of his body on the table.
"Pains. They've gotten sores that would refuse to heal. I've tried everything. It would itch till I bleed." Ivy was no longer conservative with her words and emotions.
"For how long?"
"Three years."
"Three what?!" Dr Steve exclaimed. He wasn't sure he heard right.
"... and just recently, I started noticing a lump beneath my left breast," she continued.
"I don't get it! Have you been sleeping all these while or what?! For three years? And you have done nothing about it?"
It was until Ivy's watery eyes started shedding off its tears that Dr Steve realised how unprofessional he had become. The anger was just too much to contain.
'So with all the jingles, posters, enlightenment, people can still be this ignorant,' he had thought.
Memories of what happened 15 years ago began to play in her head. As she remembered each detail, her cry became louder.
"Talk to me I've, why did you take this long?"

******************************************

(Flashback - 15 years ago in a remote village in Kastina, a Nothern state in Nigeria.)

Ivy clenched unto the wrapper of her mother as they waited for their turn. Five other women with their children were also seated on the long bench at the narrow corridor that served as the waiting room leading to the 'theatre'. The air reeked of dust with a mixture of tobacco smell and Aboniki - a popular massaging balm. The sunlight that permeated through the broken wooden window made the cracks on the walls of the mud house very visible. No one seemed to be bothered. Probably, the faith they had in the scantily thached roof had extended to the already falling mud house.
Ivy could feel her heart beat faster. She was just 13 years old and had no ikling about what was going on in the room opposite where they sat. The old torn curtain did a great job in obstructing her view, but not the screams of her peer in in there.
"Mummy, please... it's painful," was all Ivy could hear. She looked up to her mother to find some consolation for what she was going to pass through. Her mother's face was blank. No hope.
"Next!" the old woman in the room squealed.
It was the turn of Ivy. Ivy's mother pulled Ivy up from the bench and dragged her into the room. The sight Ivy beheld sent cold shivers down her spine. It was a bit smoky in the room as a result of the fire the old woman used in boiling water for her business.
Ivy could still see the previous 'patient' lay on the Bamboo bed. She had the upper part of her body bared and her sprouting breast hit continuously with the head of a broom.
"E don do?" the old woman would ask the girl's mother between intervals.
"Errrmmm... it's okay for now. Let's be watching it." The girl's mother who was having a hard time restraining her daughter from escaping finally approved.
"Wahala no dey," the old woman stopped and started putting her equipments in order. "but I get some materials we she fit dey weather for chest make the breast for no dey show. Na strong elastic material," the old woman continued while trying to advertise some elastic bands that could be worn on the body.
"Next time," the girl's mother waved it off.
The little girl was soon dressed up by her mother and led out of the room.
"Lie down," the old woman commanded Ivy. "You no go commot your shirt first?" She asked rhetorically with an irritated face that left more wrinkles to her already wrinkled face.
Ivy obeyed and laid flat. The imagination of what it felt like made her hands and feet shiver.
"Madam, which one I go use?" the old woman asked Ivy's mother.
"I don't know. Anyone we go better," the confused mother gave her permission.
"Na turning-garri go better," the old woman said referring to the wooden spoon used for cooking.
Ivy felt her heart sink.
"Mummy, please, I don't want to do," Ivy begged her mother for the hundredth time.
"Shut up!" her mother scolded. "Do you want all the boys in the village to be following you around? Do you want to carry belle at this your small age?" Ivy's mother continued scolding with her stern face that hadn't smiled since they stepped their feet in the old woman's place.
"My pikin, no fear," the old woman tried assuring Ivy through a wry smile that made her look more horrible. "E no go pain you too much. Every woman wey you dey see for this village don pass through this thing - for my hand sef. Na for your own good my pikin."
Those words only aided in making Ivy cry more. Ivy watched as the old woman dipped half of the wooden spoon into the boiling water and held it for about a minute. Thereafter, she proceeded to where she was laid and pressed it forecefully on her sprouting breasts. The loud scream that escaped from her mouth was the last thing she remembered that happened that very day.

*********************************************

(Present day at Dr Steve"s office)

"I'm scared, Doctor. The pains I experienced all in the name of Breast Ironing are still fresh in my head. I don't want to have anything to do with my breasts again. I can't go through such pains again," Ivy cried. Her tears tasted saltier than it should. While her lower lip seemed too stiff as she tried chewing on it to prevent her teeth from clattering. Intermediately, when she tastes the blood spilling from her bruised lip, she would transfer her aggression to the middle fingernails of her right palm, making sure she chop off everything till they bled.
Dr Steve wasn't prepared for what he was seeing that morning.
"Listen, Ms Ivy, you have no idea of the danger you are in right now. Something needs to be done. Treatment has to begin! It could be breast cancer or a serious infection that had eaten deep into your system. Don't be a coward! Anytime you keep wasting here counts. You may even die if care is not taken." Dr Steve tried all possible words to encourage her.
"I don't care. I don't bloody care!" Ivy screamed at the top of her voice.
There and then, Dr Steve knew he had lost it. There was no way he was going to convince a traumatic patient who had resigned to fate. He relaxed a little and thought of what next to do. With a jerk, he removed the stethoscope that hung on his neck and pulled off his lab coat.
"Let's pretend I'm not a doctor for now," Dr Ivy said trying to put up a new character.
"Why?"
"It doesn't matter, just look at my face. Look closer. What do you see?" Dr Steve asked.
Ivy tried figuring out what he was driving at, but couldn't.
"Look here." Dr Ivy used his fore-finger to draw a horizontal lines on the two sides of his cheeks.
"Tribal marks."
"Correct! Tribal marks! These are tribal my dad made me have when I was seven years old all in the name of culture! He disfigured my face. He made me hide my face whenever I was with my mates. I became an object of ridicule. My self esteem kept on going down every day." Dr Steve sounded like he was going to break into tears. He allowed her imagination wander a bit. It was no good imagination. She shook her head trying to stop the imaginations from coming.
"Do you think you are the only one that has been bastardised by some ridiculous cultural practices?" Dr Steve asked with a father-like tone. He could feel a sense of guilty come over her gradually.
"Ivy, many people have been there and are already pulling through. You want to be left behind? You want your past to kill you?"
Ivy shook her head lightly.
"Then let's begin treatment! Over there, LIE DOWN." Dr Steve geticulated at the bed in his office.
'Lie down,' the exact words the old woman used years back had come up again.
"...for physical examination." Dr Steve quickly added.